I was a member of the BK world for 32 years. I am currently 45 and have spent the last 2 and a half years trying to think and feel for myself as me now that I no longer live in that environment. I spent a total of 17 years as a fully surrendered BK. 15 of those years at the Global Retreat Centre in Oxford, UK. Doing anywhere from 70 to 95 hours of physical tasks per week on a totally voluntary unpaid basis doing service, I have helped the BKs build 35 centres and houses on 3 continents.

Leaving that kind of intense schedule to a life of standing still to try and work out who I was as I had truly lost all sight of me in my life, has presented many challenges, many I have not yet got any idea how to solve. But I do feel I am gaining strength to think for myself again, free from the should’s and should not’s of other people’s pressure to live up to what they needed me to be, or what I thought they needed me to be.

During my time in the BKs, I witnessed the inner circles of the BK leaderships. I saw some kindness but more cruelty. I have performed my fair share of cruel acts in this time and been on the receiving end of a number too. I have seen much fear and arrogance expressed and seen these acts approved and even rewarded. When I lived at GRC I found myself in a very confined space and the view points of the people there, myself included, became very narrow, judgemental, and incredibly loosely based on something true or real. I found my life become devoid of a feeling of love and that emptiness in my heart replaced by fear. The seclusion from different views of truth or even how to live and express life made life cold and empty. My attempts at Yoga with God became more a meditation on personal survival. I never found any structure within the whole organisation that I could ask for help from that could be impartial and guide me to a place of being spiritually me. I found my emptiness inside just grow.

I found myself receiving attention from the Sister in charge of the retreat centre. This grew after some time into a love/hate pseudo sexual affair, that both compelled me and revolted me all at the same time. My last 2-3 years of this created major trauma for me – to tell the truth of the situation that was going on and to risk being evicted from the place I lived and everything that was my world. I had little money and no family home to return to as my mother had sold it and given all proceeds to BKs and lives in another BK centre. I came to a crossroads where I knew if I did not just leave everything and GO, I would lose whatever little shred of life I had left inside the shell that used to be me.

After leaving GRC and stopping being a surrendered member of the BK world, I received no offer of any kind of help. I admit now that I felt so low about myself that I did not feel worthy to accept any help, and there was no chance I could ask for the same reason. 9 months after leaving I found out through a conversation with one of the six UK BK trustees that they have a department set up to help with people in my situation. I felt anger at his matter of fact disclosure, that it was totally my own fault for not knowing such a thing existed. I have since come to know that many people within the BK management structure were aware of this breach of rule, and just simply turned a blind eye as it made life easier to do so.

Some of my time and experiences in the BK world were great, but I have grown as a person so much more outside of that world than I ever could have inside it. And so many other religions have messages and practices that were in this world before the BKs and say the same thing, but my personal experience is that they do it better than the BKs do.

My reason for writing this email is not to justify or blame, but to set myself free from the conscious and sub conscious guilt that I carry around inside of Me for the lies I have told to protect the actions I performed under the guise that I was an instrument of GOD.

As is so commonly said - the truth will set you free. And I know it is finally time to make peace with myself and move forward without the fear and guilt I have of this time in my life.

We hear you ... we've been there (although not in my own case as far as you have gone) ... and we are out of the other side too. Please allow me to assure you, once the dust is settled, there very much is life after BK. Perhaps we can discuss it later.

I am interested to read of this new department of facility for exiting BKs. If you find out more, please let us know as we are one of the few sources of information on the BKs beyond the BKWSU's control. It does not surprise me at all to read that while it exists, you were not told about it. That is so typical to their "wheels within wheels" world.

I imagine, rather like a bank being caught running a Ponzi scheme, they would not want many people to be demanding the return of their investment all at the same time. BKism is a Ponzi scheme. If you are too principled, the will exploit that; if you are too weak, they will exploit that; if you are too damaged; they will exploit that; if you are too confused, they will exploit that ... and it take some people years to get over BKism.

One ex-surrendered member here did finally walk after about £20,000 they had, in essence, paid into a private individual’s mortgage (an official center-in-charge who held the centre in their own name).

However, please allow me to say straight away ... don't sign anything if they ask you to do so.

You probably won't want to hear the advice I am about to give you right now. I appreciate that there are other things to discuss and I suspect you would see yourself amongst the "too principled" bracket but please consider it, and the reasons I am saying it.

You have a very good case to sue them for damages for being subjected to "undue influence" and, bizarrely as it might sound, for breaches of employment law. You would be doing the world, never mind the BK world, a great favour if you considered your legal situation in the next year or so as it is still fresh. It's not about the money so much as getting them to respect others' lives and to factor into their economic system, and the BKWSU is an economic system, workers' rights and things like pension and insurance.

For example, were they paying your national insurance during this time?

With our discoveries about their historical revisionism, and similar conduct all over the world, we can help you with information.

BTW, on the basis of your knowledge of the inner circle, how and where does Jayanti get her money and expenses paid?

There is no greater spiritual practice than being honest with oneself. There is no braver act than to leave the comfort zone we created for ourselves and inhabit through our desire for that to be true, especially when we have lived in that space for so long and, with our submission, could have easily continued there for who knows how long.

As Joseph Campbell would put it, that leaving is the beginning of the hero’s journey.

Rather, I would say that when you entered the BKs, that was an attempt to embark on that journey, but as Campbell has outlined, one of the first things encountered is a major battle, abduction or being waylaid by some enchantment. One can be held up for minutes, months or years, some for the rest of their lives (e.g. Odysseus’s crew who won't leave the land of the Lotus Eaters).

The ”dark night of the soul” (as described by St John of the Cross) is the entering into the depths where one, stripped of everything, starkly faces oneself, "realises" and finds oneself again.

You are now ”in flight” (see attachment) and on your way home.

As the Zen saying goes ”before enlightenment, you chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood and carry water”.

I know how extreme this must sound but I wonder if the new 'Modern Slavery Act' laws might apply? There was that case of the Maoist cult in London where the women were freed after 30 years.

It's not about the money, or vengeance, or "negativity" ... I am always wary as BKism writes so much "protective code" in our minds in order to protect itself, during and after our involvement with it ... it's more about forcing them to put protections into place for others; dragging the Kirpalani Klan, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century.

They would say, "no one forced you to stay ... it was your decision". I strongly disagree, because of the 'Undue Influence' factor; meddling with our religious beliefs, use of the 'End of the World' and karma fears, and so on ... "defaming Baba" or "defaming the family" being two primary control or damage limitation mechanisms.

What upsets me in these such cases is how people only get anything back from them if they put up a fight, and some have even gone to court, but when it is "family", like Jayanti's Father getting the Richmond centre back after he "donated" it to Baba ... it's an entirely different matter. It happens without question.

It's the inequality factor that is unjust.

It's time they matured up and had protections in place for surrendered individuals, e.g. pensions, insurance, retirement and, dare I say, holidays even.

And I am guessing, whatever you went through, all the little powerless, dispensable Indian girls/women get it 100 times worse.